Farewell to Stamps? Swedes May Swap for SMS

While I am a geek, I am a tad bit mixed on things new tech. I still like books and I don’t care what kind of beep, blop, or ding my PDA makes, it is just not the same as drawing a line through it on a real to-do list. Nonetheless, things are a-changing.

On one hand I think it is real neat that one can use a vending machine with a cell phone and, on the other, I think that the GRcode we use over at indienation.fm looks like a Rorschach ink bloch test and not something that belongs on a Web page.

Call me old fashioned, but I agree with the first line from the Ars Technica putting the stamp on a letter before the postal snail arrives to collect it is the end of a ritual. This is almost as sad as not having to lick the stamps anymore. Chalk one off to tech, as I quote Ars Technica:

…that ritual is about to be replaced with a more high-tech one: people may soon be able to pay for their postage via text message, thereby eliminating the need for a stamp.

The system works like this: Swedes will be able to send a text message to the postal service saying that they want postage for a letter. The postal service will then presumably charge an account on file, then respond with another text that contains a code. The letter-sender will then write the code on the envelope to show that postage had been paid.

Sounds nice, and it sounds convenient, but what are the Swedish youth going to collect? Is the bar code collection to replace the stamp collection?